


Lamb and Lily

by justanotherStonyfan



Series: Hydra Trash Meme 2014 ongoing - blanket dub/non consent warnings [11]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Crack Treated Seriously, Extremely Dubious Consent, Forced Orgasm, HYDRA Trash Party, HYDRA Trash Party adjacent, M/M, Masturbation, Multiple Orgasms, Other, Sex Pollen, Sex Toys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-09-23 10:03:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20338315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justanotherStonyfan/pseuds/justanotherStonyfan
Summary: Did he who made the Lamb make thee?





	Lamb and Lily

**Author's Note:**

> Shameless self-indulgence of the "what if indulging the induced urges is the wrong thing to do" school of thought, courtesy of ZepysGirl. Don't expect exposition from this thing. 
> 
> See end notes for warnings and spoilery summary.
> 
> This isn't as bad as my other stuff, it being trash-adjacent, but it's still pretty tough on Steve *Police Camera Action voice* Viewer discretion advised.

The only indication that something is terribly wrong is the very lengthy period of dead air that follows Bucky’s check-in after Steve makes a strangled yelping noise and then…sneezes? Is that him?

“Steve, I swear to God, you answer me right now-”

_“Uh,”_ Steve says, and Bucky’s heart slows just a little, okay, he’s fine.

“What did you do, you slip or something?” 

_“I,”_ Steve says, _“Uh,”_ and Bucky closes his eyes. _“I found the biobotanicals.”_

Okay, so he’s not fine but he’s also not seriously injured, or he’d be behaving differently. Bucky hates that Steve’s been injured enough times that he can tell, but Steve’s not currently one-track-mind serious, not overly-affectionate, not any of the things that suggest he a) needs immediate assistance or b) thinks he’s going to die, so that means that this is not only a problem but it’s one that Steve thinks is solvable.

_“Buck, I…just got. Uh. I’m…pollinated? I think?”_

Bucky closes his eyes.

“Pollinated?” he says.

_“Yeah,”_ Steve answers, as other responses filter in. _“Yeah, the plant sorta sneezed on me, it’s…”_

He clears his throat, and that makes Bucky’s instincts sit up and take notice. Always has, of course, but Bucky’s heart sinks to hear it. If his instincts recognize the sound, his brain knows Steve shouldn’t be making it these days. 

Steve clears his throat again.

“Okay, I’m gonna ping you and come get you-”

_“Uh, I wouldn’t,”_ Steve answers, his voice rasping. _“I’m-”_ He clears his throat a third time. _“Uh, I’m, it’s- My body temp is up and I-”_

_“You breathin’?”_ Wilson says, and there’s a noise like fabric over fabric - Steve must have nodded.

_“Breathin’ ain’t the issue, I need extraction. Full HAZMAT until we know otherwise, something’s up for sure.”_

“Get him out,” Bucky says, “now. Get him out, _now!”_

_“Cool it, Ivan, I got him,”_ Stark says and, as much as Bucky dislikes the guy’s attitude, he’s not a bad guy, and he’s the only one whose suit is high grade enough to act as a barrier against bioweapons. 

Bucky resists the urge to tell Stark to be careful with him. Neither Steve nor Stark would appreciate it.

~

When Bucky gets back to the compound, he runs off the jet and yanks his gear over his head, because some of the Avengers wear respirators thanks, and heads on inside as quickly as he can.

_“He’s fine!” _ a voice addresses him as soon as he’s inside, and a little floating hologram face appears, the friendly visage of Helen Cho that moves with him as he jogs. _“We’re not sure what it is yet but he’s fine for the time being - his blood pressure, heart rate, respiratory rate and body temperature are elevated, but there’s nothing manifesting itself so far. It appears to be inducing mild anxiety. He’s standing quietly for the time being.”_

Bucky nods as she talks - okay, not as bad as he was worried about. He can deal with that, that’s fine. It’s not like this is the first time Steve had a problem with pollen.

Wilson and Romanov have already secured a sample by the time Bucky gets downstairs to the compound’s…Okay, he hasn’t been to this section before, is this for supersoldiers? He goes downstairs to little white rooms - they look like cells. But they say ‘Contamination Room’ on the outside, and are numbered and plus like…Bucky knows how to rig electronic locks like these ones, he can get him and Steve out if he needs to.

Steve doesn’t look up when he walks into the Contamination Observation Room. Apparently every room has one - for the scientists to ogle and be weird (okay, take readings and assist, but Bucky _hates_ guys like these, rooms like these, Bucky _remembers_ being locked down and observed. He just has to make his body listen when his brain tries to tell it this is _our side and they’re not going to hurt us_). And he’s always going to be jittery in medical facilities, he’s accepted that, but right now Steve’s his main priority and he works hard to keep a straight face when he goes in the observation room.

The first thing he notices is that nobody’s rushing around at a billion miles an hour, the second thing is that Steve’s standing very close to the observation window, one arm up on the wall, because there’s a high-powered fan right there and he’s got his face almost inside the damn thing. So none of the scientists are in a state of emergency, good. There’s a flush on Steve’s cheeks and his bangs, usually coiffed upward with stupid, sticky hairgel that feels like dry straw when Bucky tries to run his fingers through it, is feathery and waving about in the breeze from the fan. Which would indicate it was soaked with sweat first.

What would also indicate that is the fact that Steve’s mouth is hanging open, brow furrowed, and he breathes like he’s exhausted, every breath an effort. But, most of all, what really shows it is the fact that his suit is hanging open. 

He’s got on an undershirt - half of it’s mesh and it’s not unattractive - but he’s removed the under-protection, which is one of those compression things Stark developed that’s fireproof and other fun shit, and the upper half of his suit hangs at his waist like the top of Bucky’s boiler suit when he used to sweep floors for O’Grady the grocer in the height of summer back in thirty-six and -seven. Bucky can see that Steve’s bangs are dry, but the hairs at the nape of his neck glisten, the skin is damp.

“Hey,” he says, and Steve doesn’t move.

“He can’t hear you,” one of the science people says, and Bucky levels a look at them.

“Any particular reason I’m not allowed to talk to my husband?”

They’re not married - He and Steve have talked about it but Bucky doesn’t want to, for reasons he doesn’t always want to think about. But that _is_ how they _think_ of each other, that’s how they introduce each other, that’s how they refer to each other, because it’s easier than ‘this is my off-and-on boyfriend of the last seventy years or so,’ and doesn’t out them to people who haven’t figured out who they are. Besides, ‘husband’ is what Bucky feels, and so he wants to know why the other half of whatever soul he’s got left is not allowed to answer a simple greeting.

“He asked us to mute it,” the science person says. “He said he might get loud. We said it doesn’t matter but he insisted.”

Oh. Well okay, but still.

“Okay, that’s fair, my bad,” because he’s an adult and one of the many steps he took on the long, still-winding, road to recovery was take-ownership, but still, “I wanna talk to him, please.”

It sounds like a request but it’s not - he’s next of kin, he gets his perks. 

He understands, as soon as they open the comm, what Steve meant. There’s a reason he looks like every breath’s an effort and that’s ‘cause he’s going, 

_“Ahhhh, ahhhh,”_ with each one.

Bucky’s on alert about it instantly.

“Hey baby,” he says, puts his metal hand on the glass. “You hurtin’?”

Steve jolts a little - doesn’t seem startled so much as he seems to come back to himself a little, though Bucky’s not surprised he zoned out.

_“I’m just…”_ he says, and his eyes open halfway, he turns his head and looks at Bucky. Then he lifts his head and smiles slowly, affectionate. _“Hey, honey.”_

Bucky nods in response.

“You hurtin’?” he says again, and Steve winces but shakes his head.

_“Naw,”_ he says. _“Just warm.”_

But one of the sciency people says,

“Heart rate spiked, blood pressure spiked,” and that’s…not _so_ unusual.

Steve always looks at Bucky like he’s never seen anything like him before - always like he’s spotted an ice-cream sundae after five years on the Master Cleanse, so (shut up, there’s only one type of magazine on tables in waiting rooms and they are Old Gossip - Bucky’s picked up more accidentally about the goddamn Kardashians than he ever wanted to know, and hates himself more every time he understands someone young at Starbucks without having to Google it first) it doesn’t surprise him that Steve - who could still be a horny little fuck while he was scrawny and fiery and, once, so sick he was _literally unable to walk_ \- is still able to give him a little of the old ‘hello, soldier’ through those long lashes despite his current predicament. 

Steve _loves_ him, and Bucky is eternally grateful to the universe that it’s the one thing his Swiss-cheese brain has somehow never questioned. Whether or not he deserves that love is a different kettle of ballgames, but most of the time the little voice that says _’a guy like Steve wouldn’t love anyone who didn’t deserve it’_ is louder than the one that still tries to call him _’Soldat.’_

Bucky’s still worried about it though.

_“Real warm,”_ Steve says, and he lifts his hand off from where it hangs at his side and presses it to the glass over Bucky’s with a thud. 

His arm looks close to being a dead weight - his whole body does, actually. It’s a rare thing to see Steve lethargic but he looks like he feels like he’s been submerged in molasses. 

“You havin’ a hard time, baby?” Bucky asks, and Steve blinks slowly, looks at Bucky’s chest, his legs, flicks his gaze back up to Bucky’s face.

_“I-”_ he says, and one of the science people says -

“Heart rate rising, blood pressure rising, body temperature rising,” and, just as Bucky’s about to turn around and ask what the hell, just as he’s about to try and gauge how bad this is through the body language of the people who were telling him it was fine about three minutes ago, Steve —

Steve bumps his head on the window?

_“Ahah-ow?” _ he says, and Bucky chuckles, bemused.

“What happened there, you slip?” he says, while Steve rubs his forehead with the flat of his fingers.

“There’s,” somebody says, and then Steve’s looking at him the way he looks at him over breakfast sometimes, the way he looks at Bucky when they share a bath. 

And —

Okay, he does it again.

“Hey, steady!” Bucky says, bumping his flesh hand on the glass because the instinct to protect Steve’s forehead is so strong, responding in sympathy. “Ow. Hey, what are you doing?”

Steve’s rubbing his forehead again.

_“Ow, _damn _it,”_ he says, and rubs at the same spot a little more vigorously.

“Uhm, Sergeant Barnes-”

“Yeah, what’s he do-”

Okay, third time!

“Steve!” he yells, and Steve has both hands over his forehead now, wincing.

_“Ow, Jesus,”_ Steve says.

“Stop hitting your head on the window!” Bucky yells, incredulous, arms out because he can’t actually make himself big and back Steve up with a window in the way, but he can get close enough to the glass to freak him out, hopefully. “What the fuck are you doing, you’re not a goddamn bumblebee for _fuck’s_ sake, back off!”

Steve does, takes two steps back from the window and shakes his head, runs his fingers through his _sodden_ hair.

“What the hell are you doing, Steve, what’s goin’ on?”

He waits for Steve to drop his hands and then looks at him. He’s flushed and sweaty - so sweaty he’s left little circles of grease on the glass in the three places he bumped his head, but he was standing in front of a fan literally thirty seconds ago, he really shouldn’t be sweating that much. 

_“I don’ know,”_ he answers, slurred. _“I don’ know,”_ and then he plants his hands on his hips and hangs his head, blows out a long breath. _“Jesus, can I get some air-con in here?”_

“Air’s on full,” somebody says, and Bucky shakes his head. 

“What’s going _on_ with this?” he says, and it’s at this point Bucky turns around to look at Wide Eyes the Science Guys for an answer.

They all look just as deer-in-the-headlights as he thought they would.

“Uh…we’re not sure,” one very brave one says. 

Bucky decides they can live for now but only because something’s wrong with Steve and the most likely people to figure it out are these ones. 

_“God, can I,”_ Steve says. _“I just, I’m not gonna get naked but can I-”_

“Go ahead,” one of the scientists answers - there are four of them.

One’s a woman, two are dudes, and the last one’s Helen Cho, who’s also a woman but Bucky knows her name already so that’s who she is in his mental tally. He looks back at Steve just as Steve strips the undershirt over his head - it’s like a shrug and a mesh corset had a weird mixed up baby garment that looks stunning on Bucky’s husband, let’s be real, but his torso’s flushed, from neck to waistband. Which is very low.

Focus. 

“That a rash?” Bucky asks, pointing, and Steve looks down at himself, winces, swipes his hand on the underside of his chin, and looks down at himself again. 

He’s dripping, Bucky can see it. The uniform is dark where it hangs at his waist. 

_“Buck,”_ he says. _“No, it’s just, I’m just too hot, Bucky,”_ Jesus, that’s just a flush? _“Christ, this is like that heatwave when I was six.”_

He was six going on seven, actually, and Bucky’d just turned eight, and the whole of New York - the whole of the country - suffered for that heat wave, Steve a notable one among the ones Bucky’d known. A hundred sixty two people died in New York just from the heat, and Bucky sat with Sarah Rogers, armed with damp rags and table mats, sponging and fanning and tryin’ to keep it from being one-sixty-three. 

_“Fuck,”_ Steve whispers, and he goes for his boots next.

“It’s okay, baby,” Bucky says, even though he’s got no idea, and Steve glances up at him from under his eyebrows.

He can do it standing - unlace his boots and get them off - and so he does, boots, socks, okay, the uniform, right. And the, okay, the pants.

He stands in the middle of the little white room in his black boxer briefs and looks very nice doing so but he’s soaked them through, Bucky can tell. There are sweat drops on him despite how high the AC is. 

“What’s it doing, what’s it done?” Bucky says. “Can we get him ice, is there something he can have to - you got sprinklers in there?” 

“We do,” Helen Cho says. “But the problem with biobotanical weapons is that they’re often developed from fungi or psychoactive angiosperm, which means-”

“Which means,” Bucky says, nodding. “Right. Doing what they want you to do is bad.”

Helen Cho is silent for a moment or two. What? Bucky’s not an idiot.

“Yes,” she says. “Exactly, he…he may be infected by something that’s trying to cause brain damage through increase of body temperature, induce a heart-attack by increasing functionality of-”

“None of this is encouraging,” Bucky tells her. “Just so you know.”

“Or it may be that we cannot indulge the apparent requirements of the affliction, as with some hemorrhagic fevers, where the patient requests water but must not be given water,” she nods. “I know, I’m sorry. But we have blood samples, and the source plant is en route. This increase has only occurred within the last few minutes - we can, at this juncture, provide the him with iced water.”

_“Yes please!”_ Steve answers. _“In a tub about two by eight by four.”_

Bucky snorts, and she smiles. 

“I can provide a glass for you to drink,” she says. 

Steve groans.

“That’d be great, thanks,” Bucky says.

~

For half an hour, all Steve does is stand and sweat. He paces a little, but then he comes back to the window and puts his arm up in front of the fan again, eyes closed, and Bucky just looks at his poor sweaty face, his poor sweaty body. He puts his hand up and touches the glass ‘cause he can’t reach through it to cradle Steve’s skull, though he wishes he could. He can’t swipe his hand over Steve’s face and dry it, he can’t kiss his cheek or hold his hand. He gets to stand five inches away from Steve and not touch him. Great.

“How do we get into this stuff, pal?” he says, more to himself really, but Steve’s able to hear him anyway, so he answers.

_“Hell if I know,”_ he says, mumbling - his hand’s back on the glass, too, and he rests his forehead against it and shakes his head, like he could press himself to Bucky if he just thought about it hard enough.

The source plant arrives, which Bucky knows because the scientists huddle into another separate little room - do all these rooms have six different by-rooms or is Steve just lucky? - and come back and tell him so.

But not before Steve…Okay, Bucky doesn’t even know what he does, really. Because he thumps his whole body into the window, but he doesn’t slip or whatever, he hasn’t misjudged the distance. It looks like somebody shook the room while he was in it and he fell into the window except-

_“Bucky?”_ Steve says, and Bucky looks at him.

He’s pressed to the glass like that chick from that one episode of that thing - Christ, he can't remember, some blonde gettin’ it in a shower, pressed up against the glass like Steve is now. Samantha somebody.

“Hey,” Bucky says, “what’re you doin’ Steve? You forget where the window was?” But Steve winces, eyes still closed, turns his head against the glass and pushes himself forward. “Steve that’s a window,” Bucky tells him. “You can’t get through just by pushin’ hard enough-”

_“Bucky,”_ he groans, and it sounds like pain, sounds like somethin’s changed and Bucky doesn’t know what it is but it’s probably not good from the look on Steve’s face. _“I…Shhhit, I-I think I want…”_

Bucky takes a step back to look at him, get a good view of Steve to see if there’s anything physical that shows him what’s wrong and…the…

Yeah, well, that’s certainly a physical sign of _something._

“Stevie?” Bucky says, and he waits for Steve to look at him.

_“Hi?”_ he says.

“Hi, Steve,” Bucky says, cautious - he’s aware of beeping and wheedle-deedle noises coming from the machines behind him but nobody’s talking except him and Steve. That’s not a great sign. “Hi babe, hey, can you do me a favor? Can you take a couple steps back from the window there, sweetheart?”

And Steve stares at him for a long few seconds, tick, tock, he doesn’t look sure. And then he puts his hands against the glass and shoves himself forward with such little care that he klonks that beak of his against the window, then his forehead, his eyes closed again.

_“Buck,”_ he groans, and Bucky looks him up and down - he’s started shoving his hard-on against the window too, thrusting shallowly.

Bucky puts his hands out, too, instinct again, but he can’t stop him, he can’t shake Steve or push him back or anything because there’s a window in the way.

“What the fuck,” Bucky says. “Steve? What are you do- What the hell is happening?” he says, looks back over his shoulder. “What is this thing?”

“Ah,” one of the scientists says, and Bucky looks at the guy.

Steve’s body makes another thump against the glass and Bucky looks back. He’s, okay, is he like grinding against the glass now, is that what he’s doing? Bucky’s not jealous, that would be terrible and pointless, and he’s also definitely worried, for sure. Because this obviously isn’t how Steve behaves most of the time, isn’t even how Steve behaves some of the time.

“Steve,” he says, and Steve doesn’t listen.

Steve’s head is back enough that he’ll bump his chin if he’s not careful, but he’s definitely grinding his dick against the glass, eyes closed, mouth open.

“Shit,” Bucky mutters.

Steve starts making soft little noises - the kind of soft little noises he’d be making if Bucky were fucking him, so that’s totally unfair for multiple reasons, the main one being nobody else should get to hear those.

_“Ahhh, uhhh,”_ he says, head back, skin glittering.

He’s got his hands open, palms flat against the window, and he’s yep, he’s just rubbing his dick against the glass.

“Steve, you still hear me?” Bucky says, and Steve says,

_“Mmmmh,”_ in a way that might mean ‘yes’ or might mean ‘this is a noise I’m making independently of your question’ so it’s anybody’s guess.

“What is happening?” Bucky says, not really sure where he’s directing the question.

“I mean,” a scientist says. “We, uh, we’ve been looking at the source plant and we thought it might….uh, b-be a Sarraceniaceae or a Nepenthaceae but it…Uh, we think it’s a. A fungus or something similar, wired for propagation-”

“Please tell me,” Bucky says, because he knows those words, he’s horrifically aware of what everybody’s trying not to tell him, “that you’re not telling me you thought this thing was a Venus fly trap but now you think it’s viagra magic mushrooms,” because is this even fucking happening. 

“Uhm,” the non smart-mouthed scientist guy says.

“Right,” Bucky says, and he pinches the bridge of his nose. “Are y’all gonna stand around here and watch my husband get off on your two-way, or you gonna do somethin’ about it?”

_“Uhhn, ohhn,”_ Steve says, and Bucky’s lucky as hell because his husband really is very pretty, but this sucks on about twenty different levels. 

“Should he be doing that?”

“You gonna stop him?” the smart-mouthed brave one mutters, and Bucky has not yet learned how to murder with mind-powers-focused-by-glare, but he gives his best shot.

“We have to let him do something,” Helen Cho says, “if we want to determine what the spores are trying to make his body do-”

“Spores, I swear to God-” Bucky mutters.

“-we need to observe his actions.”

“All of you?” Bucky counters. “All of you guys need to watch my husband fuck a window? Huh? He’s a national icon and the love of my life, you can’t give us a little privacy?”

Smart Mouth Male says,

“Uh, we can monitor from the oth- the other room i-if you-”

“Yeah, I do,” Bucky nods. “All’a you, I don’t want anybody in here if you don’t gotta be ‘cause there’s no way he’d want you in here if he were thinkin’ straight. You’re on my comm link, right?”

Dr Cho and Smart Mouth are already gathering papers. The woman - she’s got glasses and she looks like Hedy Lamarr if he squints - is pulling leads and switching plugs like a telephone operator, and Shy Guy is already by the door. Bucky likes him a lot so far, as far as he likes any of them.

_“Uhn, uhn,”_ Steve says, and Bucky looks at him, he’s literally trying to fuck the window. 

His dick is leaking through his boxers and he’s starting to leave smears on the glass. 

“Ohh, God,” Bucky sighs, and he puts his hands on his hips.

The scientists file into the other room, one by one, the door closes after them, and then it’s just him and Steve with a glass window between them. Steve’s dick through the wet fabric against the glass is _squeaking_ and Bucky becomes aware of it -

_squeak-a-squeak-a-squeak,_ like Steve’s squeegeeing the glass and Bucky stifles a laugh with the back of his hand, he can’t help it.

“God, this is crazy.”

_“Uhn, fuck, oh fuck,”_ Steve murmurs, his voice tinny through the speaker. _“Mmh, uhh, Bucky,”_ and Bucky steps up to the window, puts his hands over Steve’s on the glass.

“Hey,” he says, “hey, honey, how you doin’?”

‘Cause there’s not much besides waiting this out now. If it’s making Steve horny, if it’s wanting this from him, all Bucky’s really able to do is stand there - it’s weird, it’s so _weird_, like Bucky’s been here for so much.

He’s stroked Steve’s hair back during fevers that ought to’ve killed him, he’s been right there with Steve in his arms when Steve’s been half trapped under masonry, he’s held Steve’s hand that one time in Europe Steve got his fucking _throat cut_ and Morita stitched him up, but here? To be standing palm to glass to palm with Steve while Steve squeaks his dick against the glass -

He’s leaving handprints, the condensation’s collecting in a foggy outline of his big artist’s hands, he always had big hands, they hardly grew at all when he changed, when Stark and Erskine made him big. 

To be here, like this, it’s…it’s like every other time he’s needed to be there for Steve, with Steve, but…

He sighs. 

_Squeak-a-squeak-a-squeak-_

_“Yeah, ohn, fuck yeah-”_

He’s got a job to do - same one he’s always done - and that’s to do whatever he can for his best guy.

“That’s it, sweetheart,” Bucky says, soft, and the pace of Steve’s hips kicks up. “Yeah, there you go, honey, that’s right, you close? Huh? You gettin’ there?”

Steve practically melts against the window, pressing his whole body tight as he can against the glass, pecs, hips, thighs, knees, he looks like somebody’s fucking him from behind, shoving him into the window, and Bucky know what that looks like, tries not to think about it (’cause it’s sexy as fuck and now ain’t the time). He knows what it’d look like just to watch him from the other side, too, watch his hips work, watch his ass cheeks press together with every thrust, God, yeah, Bucky knows it’s a bad way to think.

In his defense, he’s not turned on by Steve having no control over his libido, he’s just turned on ‘cause he knows what Steve looks like when he _wants_ to be hot for it.

_“Bucky,”_ he says, and he winces, his nipples are dark against the glass for a change.

That’s like His Master’s Voice for Bucky - Steve’s nipples are pale, sweet little things that’re almost the same color as his skin, until his blood’s up, until his interest’s piqued, and then there they are, same kind of pretty pink as his lips, and now they’re pressed up against the glass, paler for being that way, like the skin of his pecs, big white circles where they’re flat against the window, same for his thighs, but still darker than they are most of the time.

The head of his dick has started to peek out from the waistband of his shorts, and it’s not just that leaving smears, all the skin that touches the glass leaves moisture behind. 

God he’s pretty when he’s workin’ so hard to come.

“You feelin’ okay, sweetheart?” Bucky asks. “No pain, huh, just all that pretty dick just for me, yeah?”

_“I wa-”_ he gasps, he looks so pained, like he always does, his body works so hard, _“I wanna come, Bucky,”_ and Bucky nods even though Steve hasn’t looked at him for minutes now.

“That’s fine, baby,” he says, soft as he can, soothing, “that’s just fine, you go right ahead, okay? You go right ahead baby, show me what you got for me, show me how good you can be for me, you can come, you come any time you want.”

_“Bucky,”_ he says, _“ohn, Bucky,”_ and he bites his lip, his rhythm gets faster, he does what he’s always done and pushes his whole body into it.

“That’s it baby,” Bucky says, makes sure to look at Steve in case Steve opens his eyes, his hands warming the glass under his palms ‘cause he can’t put his hands in Steve’s, “that’s it baby, you go right ahead-”

Steve does, with a bitten-back cry of the type Bucky doesn’t always get to hear, he’s so good at holding back almost always, but not this time - this time he says, 

_“Ahn, ahhhh,”_ and ruts up hard against the glass, pushing himself back to shove his hips forward.

He looks pained, (he’s so _pretty_,) and comes in stripes up the glass, thick and white and smeared by his dick as he keeps going.

“God, you always make a mess, huh?” Bucky says, and he can’t help the affection he hears in his own voice.

What he wouldn’t give to put a hand on Steve’s face right now, to rub his thumb over Steve’s lips.

“You’re so good for me, baby,” he says, “look at you, you’re so good for me.”

Steve’s hips snap forward a couple of times after that, unexpected, out of rhythm, and then he sighs and sinks forward, rests his forehead against the glass.

For a few long seconds, he doesn’t move, breathing hard, hands up by his shoulders on the window. And then he frowns, lifts his head again, opens bleary eyes and then looks around himself, at the window frame, the fan, the glass, at Bucky. 

He pushes back off the glass, lowers his hands, and stares down at himself, and then he looks back at Bucky, and _this_ time he gives Bucky a look that says nothing so much as that he’s spooked, _real_ spooked.

_“Buck,”_ he says, his voice dark, hands out, _“what the hell just happened?”_

Bucky feels the affectionate expression slide off his face.

“What?” he says, leaning forward. “What do you mean, what-”

_“I mean what fucking _happened,_ Buck?”_ he says, shaking his head.

Bucky shakes his head, puts his palms out like calm down, but the likelihood of him calming down is slim, slimmer if Bucky tells him to, so he tries to talk to Steve instead ‘cause Steve’s a firebrand for sure - always was - but usually has his head on straight.

“Hold on, baby, what do you mean, do you not remember or -?”

_“Oho, no, I remember,”_ Steve says, _“fuckin’ a plate glass window in front of-”_ he points _“-a fuckin’ room full’a’ people, yeah, I _remember,_ what I don’t get is what-”_ he laughs, _“-what the _fuck_, Bucky? What the fuck?”_

“They think it’s the plant-”

_“Yeah, no shit,”_ he looks down, swipes his hand through the mess.

“A’right,” Bucky says, aiming for placating, “a’right, baby, come on, it’s just me, cut me a li’l slack, a’right?”

Steve sighs through his nose, wipes his hands on his shorts and then realizes they’re soaked through with sweat.

_“Jesus,”_ he mutters, but then he nods, _“a’right, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Christ, what a mess.”_

Bucky frowns too, doesn’t like how unhappy Steve is about it, but then he didn’t really expect Steve to be thrilled. Except he really thought Steve might be more of himself than he seems to have been.

“They think it’s the plant releasing spores. Okay?” he says. “They think it’s like that ant stuff we saw on that show, the animal thing?”

_“Oh fuck,”_ Steve says, shoulders sagging as he lifts his head to look at Bucky. _“That cordyceps thing?”_

“They didn’t say that thing in particular but I guess,” Bucky answers. “Thing about shit like that is it makes you do somethin’ for itself, right? Climb a tree and yell ‘here I am’ so you get eaten by birds, or-”

_“Yeah, that other one with the bug- the, bugs, yeah, go around fuckin’ everything that moves until…”_

Oh.

Ha, oh shit, they both saw that one too, until your little bug dick falls off and you’re shakin’ spores all over the place. 

“Uh, oh shit,” Bucky says.

_“I’m gonna -”_ Steve says. _“Am I gonna lose my dick!?”_

“H-ey now, uh, they-” fuck, is Steve gonna lose his dick? Bucky’ll love him anyway but on a scale of one to fuck-no - “they never said that, okay? They just said they gotta watch you - I gotta watch, they’re watching the readings, okay? Just to, we need to know what it’s trying to make you do. Okay? That’s all - maybe it wants you to dehydrate, that’d explain the sweatin’, or- or maybe it wants you to-”

_“Hey, you fuckin’ ask,”_ Steve says, pointing at the floor this time, like, I’m putting my foot down,_ “you find out, am I gonna lose my dick, huh? You ask those guys if I’m gonna lose my dick, I don’t wanna-”_

He swallows hard, takes a deep breath. He’s starting to sweat again and Bucky didn’t notice that he’d stopped until he noticed he’d started up again.

“Sure,” he says, trying not to panic. “Yeah, sure, I’ll ask, you hang in there baby, okay?”

_“Oh sure,”_ Steve says. _“No fuckin’ place I’d rather be.”_

Bucky hot-foots it to the other door, opens it up because it’s there, and sticks his head in.

Everybody stops and looks at him.

“Uh,” he says, and glances back at Steve.

Steve gives him a look - _’Well?’_ \- with one raised eyebrow.

“Uh, so is…Uh, is Steve gonna lose his dick?”

Glasses Lamarr blinks and goes a little pink. Smart Mouth snorts, Shy Guy shakes his head - thank _fuck_ \- and Helen Cho turns to face him.

“No,” she says.

“Yeah, no, he’ll slough the skin off his dick long before-”

Okay, Bucky’s changed his mind, he hates Shy Guy most. 

He looks back over his shoulder, holds up a finger for a sec, and then steps in and closes the door.

“What the fuck is going on?” he says. “What is this thing, am I meant to stop him? Huh? So give me a goddamn HAZMAT suit and I’ll-”

“We don’t know,” Dr Helen Cho says, “his heart rate and respiratory rates have both come back down since or- orgasm,” yeah Bucky doesn’t envy them the job, that’s for sure, “and there are fluctuations but it…would seem currently that the best thing for him to do is allow it to run its course. We’re formulating an antidote, we think.”

“You _think!?”_

“We have little information. Currently we have a pathogen that seems similar to parasite increased trophic transmission but…this is a modified specimen, not something found naturally. We’re trying fungal antidotes first and-”

“He wants to know if he’s losing his dick today,” Bucky says, “and given that I really like his dick, I’d also like to know, so you wanna help me out here?”

“The, uhm, actually,” says Glasses Lamarr, and oh wow, okay, she’s British, thank fuck Steve didn’t hear her talk, “what we can read of his vitals, alongside the notes procured from the facility, suggest the actual bioboantical is a failed experiment. It’s _similar_ to trophic transmission but the notes suggest it doesn’t propagate properly. It’s not as intrusive or destructive as a parasite, it’s a fungus. Goodness knows what their original intention was but the result is probably something closer to…well, as you described. Viagra.”

Bucky clenches his jaw.

“Yeah,” he says, “and actually that was probably exactly their intention. Just…” he shakes his head. “You’re working on it. Right?”

“Yes,” Dr Cho says.

“Absolutely,” Smart Mouth concurs. 

“And you…you said his vitals are down since orgasm, you think he should keep jerking off?”

“At this point,” Glasses Lamarr says, “it looks like that’s not only the primary function but also the primary negation method. Propagation through emission, we’re just not sure how long the cycle continues.”

Bucky nods, passes a hand over his eyes.

“So jerk off and he gets a cooldown? And…no accidental amputation far as you can tell?”

“In layman’s terms,” Shy Guy says and yeah, Bucky definitely likes him less each time he speaks.

“Right well I’ll go fuckin’ tell him in layman’s terms then, thanks,” he snaps, turning on his heel. “Christ on a cracker, man.”

He goes back out into the main room and Steve’s-

“Aw, baby,” Bucky says. 

Steve’s on his knees now, his shorts are elsewhere, flung aside, it looks like- oh no, torn off, it looks like, and he’s kneeling by the window, sweating profusely, dick in hand. 

_“Uh, uh?”_ he says, gaze unfocused, and Bucky goes over to him, stands in front of him.

Problem is, he’s about to kneel down so they’re level when Steve, not looking at Bucky’s face, smashes his head and one shoulder against the window with a loud thump, and then screws his face up in pain, and a disturbingly innocent kind of unhappiness, and draws back with…well it’s not a pout, but it’s close.

And suddenly Bucky gets it. 

Steve’s trying to get to _him_, that’s what his dumb bumping-bug routine’s about - he’s trying to get to Bucky despite the window.

“Steve,” he says, dropping to his knees.

Steve’s whole body is bowstring tight, his one hand against the window, his other moving fast over his dick, which is hard again. 

“Steve, honey, you can’t get to me, babe, there’s glass in the way, you gotta stop-”

He kneels up with a moan, leans over so his weight’s on the glass, on his cheek and his shoulder.

_“Muhh,”_ he says, _“Buuhhh,”_ and jerks his dick, he looks ridiculous, his pretty face squished against the glass. _“Mhh, Bucky.”_

Bucky finds himself running his fingertips over the glass because he can’t stroke Steve’s cheek.

“Aw, honey,” he murmurs.

God this is so, so bad.

"Baby, be careful," Bucky tells him, but Steve is very clearly not listening.

God this is weird. Steve's about as far from an exhibitionist as he can be, except for being with Bucky. And fine, when Steve was little, a little guy, a skinny dude, he liked to strut because Bucky liked to watch him - in the privacy of their own place, of course. He'd stand there in his work clothes and tell Bucky what to do, or yank Bucky close by the collar with a smile on those pretty pink lips. Now, now he's huge and all muscly, he still likes the way Bucky looks at him ('cause that's what it is really, not that he likes to strut, just that he likes the look on Bucky's face, Bucky loves him _so_ much,) and he'll put on a show for Bucky as long as the doors are locked and the windows are turned opaque but this?

Yeah, no, this isn't Steve's kind of behavior. Bucky knows he was right to send everyone out, he'd be mortified otherwise - he'll be mortified _anyway_.

He makes little noises, quiet like, and his eyes are fixed on Bucky. Bucky tries moving, just a little, shuffles sideways. Steve follows him with his gaze - turns his head to keep Bucky in view.

"Okay, pal," Bucky sighs, and he sits up against the window, leans against it as close as he can get. "It's okay."

_"Buck,"_ he says, and Bucky puts his hand on the glass again and makes sure he's looking at Steve's face, makes sure he's showing the kind of affection Steve thrives on, because if he's got to look back and see memories like this, the least Bucky can do is make sure he knows it doesn't change anything between them.

He's not thrusting into his fist yet, although he might. He tends to when he does this for Bucky - but his thighs are corded muscle and his abs are tight and he sits on his haunches - even his feet are perfect - and he's covered, he's _covered_ in freckles, everywhere nobody sees. The tops of his shoulders and the top of his back and the insides of his arms and the tops of his thighs, his shins, they're everywhere, it's like he fell in freckles and then rolled around, or like he swam in freckles but didn't dunk his head. 

He used to hate it - in summer in Brooklyn he'd sit in the shade but they'd walk to work and, eventually, there he'd be, looking like he needed a scrub-down, middle of church, speckled brown against the only good shirt he had, off-white with age. Like a five-o'clock shadow, like he got caught on the sidewalk and splashed by a passing trolley, like someone had sprinkled him with the Demarara sugar Bucky likes in his coffee when he's feeling self-indulgent, sugared skin for Bucky to eat right up. More'n once somebody's told him he could use a shower, and more'n once Bucky's caught him trying to wipe the marks off the bridge of his nose before he twigs what's up. 

Bucky don't see 'em so much these days, with Steve's suit covering him neck to wrist and ankle, but kneeling like this, working himself fast with his eyes on Bucky, he looks like those pictures you get of forest spirits and fantasy whatsists, sittin' sexy under trees and being all seductive while the sun comes through the leaves and paints those dappled shadows.

Except this ain't seduction, it's a hijack. Something's got Steve by the shorthairs (which turns out to be neck hairs, how about that, it's a Rudyard Kipling thing, learn something new every day) except that, actually, something literally has Steve by the balls, and here's Bucky, not a foot away and still powerless.

"You want me to talk, huh, baby?" Bucky says. "You want I should talk or you need some quiet, huh, babe? You tell me, you want some quiet?" 

_"Bucky,"_ Steve says, which is sweet but not an answer, _"mmm, Bucky, Bucky,"_ it's all he's saying for now, Bucky figures, and he shakes his head.

"How 'bout you stop me if you need to stop me, huh?" he says, 'cause he's starting to realize it's for both of them, he wants to do it for Steve but he hopes Steve says he can 'cause it feels like all he can do for his best guy right now. "How 'bout I tell you some things and you stop me if that's what you need? 'Cause I'm right here, honey, I ain't goin' nowhere-"

_"Don't go,"_ Steve says, back arching, pushing those pretty pecs out, sweat sliding down between them, _"don't go, Bucky, no-"_

"I ain't goin', baby," Bucky says, and he kneels up for some illusion of getting closer, "I'm not goin' nowhere, don't you worry 'bout it, I'm right here. Okay, Steve? I'm right here."

He wants to touch him, Steve kneels and jerks off, hand tight on his dick, and stares right at him like the only thing he sees is Bucky, like the only things he does are just for him. Bucky can't get through the glass but if he could, like those mop-things on Sesame Street, if he could, he would, just shimmer straight through, consequences be damned.

But then there'd be two of them puttin' on a show and nobody to comfort Steve, damn, if Steve ever wants sex again after this Bucky's gonna treat him _so_ good.

"You wait and see when we're together, doll," Bucky says, but the smile hurts his face and his eyes, "you wait'll I'm there with you sweetheart, I'm gonna a touch you so sweet, I'll be so good to you-"

_"Yeah,"_ Steve says, high and breathy, _"yeah, Buck,"_ and his fingers are tight, the bright red head of his cock shoving out from the circle of them over and over, wet and sticky.

"You want that, baby?" Bucky says, and Steve's noises turn a little desperate. "You want my hands on you baby, want me to kiss all those places that are hurtin', huh? All that poor skin, 's so red and you're rubbin' it raw, honey, want me to kiss you better?"

_"Want your mouth,"_ Steve says, his voice strained, his eyes shut tight, he arches his back, lifts up of his haunches and there he goes, fucking his fist, muscles flexing in his thighs, _"fuck, your_ mouth, _Bucky-"_

"That's it baby," Bucky says, "that's right, you want my mouth? Lemme see how you taste-"

This time Steve doesn't get the chance to make noise, he just comes, halfway to kneeling up and thrusting hand into his fist, a good three times before he manages to get a breath and moan at him. It's loud, that's for sure, and Steve's muscle strength is impressive as Bucky's own - he ain't kneelin' up but he ain't kneeling back, neither, the insides of his thighs'll fuckin' _ache_ with it tomorrow, if he’s outta this by then.

His head goes back and his hair hangs all artful like, and he's a real beauty when he comes, sweat glittering on his chest like he's under a sprinkler - Bucky saw photos like that once on the Internet, some guy who took photos of himself in the kind of light Steve likes to paint, half stark shadows and half warm light, pecs and abs and thighs and not a patch on Steve but sexy nonetheless. One of them, the guy was outside at night with a lamp and a sprinkler, little drops clinging to his chest and stomach, to the hairs in his arms and, still, not a patch on Steve but that's what Steve looks like now. 

_"Buck,"_ he gasps, _"Buck, oh, Bucky,"_ it's all he says, and Bucky watches him come 'cause he…

Uh, okay, that's a lot considering he came like five minutes ago? And with him sweating too like, ha, wow, he's gonna need IV Gatorade if he's not careful, right.

"That good, baby?" Bucky says while he runs it through his mind, how to get liquid into Steve, "that feel good?"

Steve's still stroking, which is weird (haha what _isn't_ weird about this) - he gets way too sensitive after he comes and so he usually stops, or begs Bucky to stop (sometimes Bucky doesn't but that's fun too), but he isn't stopping now. He's hissing and wincing and his hips are jerking upward and he says,

_"Ah!"_ like it's a surprise, like he's not the one doing it to himself.

"Steve," Bucky says, and Steve keeps going a little more, hissing and jerking his dick and Bucky frowns at him. "Steve!"

Steve startles, lets go of himself and sort of hovers where he is, not kneeling down or up, hands up, as his head snaps around to look at Bucky.

Slowly, the hard-work-face gets replaced by aw-come-on face, to say he looks unhappy is like saying the Pacific's a little damp, and Bucky can't blame him. Steve drops his hands, sits back on his heels.

_"Are you kidding?"_ Steve says, out of breath. _"Is this seriously- are you kidding?"_

"I know," Bucky says, and Steve swipes his hands over his torso to gets rid of some of the sweat and come - it doesn't really do much for him. "You need somethin' to drink, babe, you're gonna dehydrate-"

_"Yeah,"_ Steve nods, and then shoves his hair back off his face, he'll need to shower that out later, _"yeah, I'm- Bucky, I can feel it, it's not gonna stop. I wanna keep goin' right now and I'm talkin' to you-"_

"Yeah, I'm- do you want me to talk, or-?"

_"Yeah,"_ Steve says, closes his eyes, hangs his head. _"Yeah, I do, I, it's…It's not so bad when you're here. God. You got water? I feel like i'm burnin' up-"_

"No," Bucky says, pushing himself back up onto his feet, watching as Steve lifts his head to watch him go, "no, but they will have, let me get-"

_"No!"_ Steve says, and, when Bucky turns 'round to look at him, he looks as surprised as Bucky feels to have shouted after him. _"Uh?"_ he says. 

"Yeah, okay," Bucky nods, 'cause that wasn't regular Steve. "A'right, baby, hang in there."

_"Yep,"_ Steve says, but his eyes are dark and his face is livid. _"Great."_

They're either listening or anticipating Steve's needs from his vitals 'cause Glasses Lamarr's got two Gatorades ready as soon as Bucky busts through the door. He takes them back and then looks at her.

"How do I…?" he says, and she bites her lip, looks at Cho and the others, and nods at the door.

Oh. Well…okay, she's a doctor, he guesses. It's nothing she….won't have seen before, but he feels like shit for not warning Steve.

But, when they go back into the room, someone in the little lab place has turned the window opaque again, it's a mirror as far as Bucky can see.

"There's a hatch," she says. "From us to a chamber, decontaminated, then the chamber into the room Captain Rogers is in. It's like an airlock, nothing outside can get in and nothing inside can get out." She taps the wall by the floor with her foot, like kicking in a loose floorboard, and then the little door opens. "There," she says. "He can't activate it from in there but we can do it for him if we need anything. Pass those through?" 

Bucky does, pushes the two Gatorades through what looks like a meal hatch in the wall - one of the places they used to keep Bucky had one of those in the door. It didn't get used much but he recognizes the concept.

"Let us know if you need anything else, we think it's a particular strain of behavior-altering fungus we've seen before, so we might have an antidote soon."

There's a noise that comes through the speaker that sounds like breaking plastic, like somebody breaking a kid's toy, and Bucky and Glasses Lamarr are both a little startled, but she holds her own.

"I'm the fungus expert," she says, and Bucky blinks at her.

"Right," he says. "Well thanks."

She nods and shrugs.

"Don't thank me yet," she says. "Hopefully not too long though."

And she goes back into the little side lab room thing. After a moment or two, the window turns into a window again, and Steve's sitting on his ass by, what Bucky presumes is, the opening of the hatch on that side of the window, head right back, draining the second Gatorade. The first one's already empty - that will have been the noise, the bottle deflating - and the second one is not far behind at all.

_"Thanks,"_ Steve gasps, flinging the bottle aside, and Bucky nods.

"Yeah," he says. "Glasses Lamarr showed me, the fungus expert."

Steve glances in the direction of the doorway.

_"Right,"_ he says. _"Well tell her thanks when you see her."_

"Yeah," he says again, belatedly realizing that he not only doesn't know the Doc's name, he also referred to her in such a way that Steve knew exactly which doctor he was talking about. 

It's nice they're so in tune but really not much of an advantage at this point. 

_"God, I'm go- I’m gonna go again,"_ Steve says. _"I can feel it, Buck, I'm windin' up, what am I gonna do, huh?"_

"Get comfy," Bucky says. "I don't…I don't think there's much else."

Steve looks at him, begrudgingly. 

_"Yeah,"_ he says, looks around the place, but his dick gets hard even as he's thinking about how he wants to sit or whatever, and his eyes go glassy.

"You want me to talk?" Bucky says. "Want me to bring you some toys?"

_"Not the good ones,"_ Steve says, _"I don't wanna buy new,"_ and then he clears his throat, shakes his head, _"just bri- Bring me-"_ he wets his lips and groans, and then he curls in on himself a little, _"I need somethin' in me, Buck,"_ and Bucky's blood rushes downwards, which isn't fair, okay, it's not like Steve's trying to get him interested, now's not the time for him to get the horn.

"You got it, babe," he says, and he goes on over to the door to stick his head in. "I'm fetchin' lube and toys, any objections?"

The scientists blink at him. Everybody except Shy Guy looks a little pink, a little shocked.

"Good," Bucky says, and off he goes.

He's almost out the door when Steve says,

_"Wait! Bucky!"_ and Bucky freezes, turns to look at him.

Steve hasn't moved - he's in the same place he was when he was drinking the Gatorade, except that he's… God, he's really a picture. Sittin' bare-ass naked on the floor, his got his legs splayed - bent at the knee - while he jerks off with one hand, leaning back on the other. He looks like a statue, like some sort of work of art. 

_"Bucky,"_ he says, and Bucky can't help it, spends a little too long staring at the way Steve's big hand looks on his dick, the way Steve's balls bounce with every tug, the way he stares at Bucky with eyes that are dark, he's slipping under fast - it was faster this time than last time, Bucky's pretty sure. 

Bucky shakes his head and makes himself look away - he needs to go and get the shit now, before Steve can't stand to have him leave. 

He hears Steve yell after him as the door shuts behind him, but he doesn't stop - can't afford to stop right now. Only thing he can really do to help is go fast as he can.

~

Their toys are in strategic places. The future is brilliant at some shit, Bucky's got no doubt about it. But there are some that they don't like as much, although they're still useful, still functional. Toys that just aren't their favorites, and Bucky tries to remember where _those_ got stashed, 'cause he knows the vibrating ring and prostate massager are in the nightstand, knows the plug got left in the bathroom cupboard, knows the cuffs are still attached to the kitchen table, but isn't sure where the less-than-constantly-used toys are. He wants something that vibrates, something that inserts, and something that eases the way - actually, fuck finding the lube they don't like, they'll need more lube at some point in the future anyway and this stuff is the good stuff, the good stuff’s what he needs.

Bucky’s arms aren't laden with stuff but he wastes more time trying to find a bag because if literally anyone stops him on the way there and he's got an armful of buttplugs, there'll be no way to explain it that isn't terrible, whether he tells the truth or not.

He does actually spot Barton but fuckin' _hustles_ when he recognizes him, so he doesn't have to stop and make smalltalk while his long term life partner's trying to fuck himself stupid in a creepy sterile basement without him. 

When he gets back, yep, Steve's actually trying to fuck himself stupid. He's mashed up against the glass with his hand back, and Bucky doesn't know how many fingers he's got inside himself but he knows he didn't have lube to start with and really, really hopes he was at least smart enough to suck his fingers or use whatever he blew on his abs to help ease the way a little.

He's really lost this time, does not appear to be home, the lights are not all on et cetera, he's just - yeah, he's definitely used something 'cause Bucky can hear the noise his fingers are making, and for a noise like the one his fingers are making, there's enough of whatever it is that he'd see blood if it was blood, so he knows it can't be that. 

Bucky kicks the wall where the hatch is, shoves the bag through. Second guesses it and pulls the bag back out, empties the stuff, shoves all that through instead - whatever the decontamination process happens in the little tunnel airlock thing, it'll probably work better if the stuff is actually out to decontaminate. 

Not that they need to really, they always clean their toys.

Steve doesn't notice, though. He isn't paying attention at all - he's on his knees, one hand against the window, eyes shut, mouth hanging open, cheek and chest up against the glass with his ass out, and he's making obscene groaning noises while his wrist works. This might take him a little longer 'cause he can't let go of the window with his other hand to jerk off or he'll just slide down the glass, but aside from the hilarity of his face being smushed, he looks enraptured, absolutely consumed, Bucky loves that look on him, shame about the circumstances.

"Hey, baby," he says, crossing over to come and sit by where Steve's head is. 

_"Hnnuuughhh,"_ Steve answers, and keeps right on going, breathing erratically, paying Bucky no mind really.

"I brought you lube, sweetheart," Bucky says, "you can, it's over by the," he looks at Steve's mushed up cheek, "it's, babe…" He sighs. "Yeah, it can wait I guess."

Steve keeps going this time, just making noises. He doesn't seem to acknowledge that Bucky's there at all, and Bucky lifts his fingers and follows the shape of Steve's cheek on the glass because he can't touch him for real.

"Wish I knew how to help," Bucky tells him.

Steve doesn’t answer him, occupied, fingers moving fast. Bucky wishes - half wishes - he couldn’t hear it, because it’s a hell of a thing to resist, a hell of a thing to ignore. He’s got to ignore it - he has to. If he pays too much attention to the rhythmic squelching noise, he’ll picture what’s making it, and then he’ll be sitting right there on the other side of the glass with a hard-on and only half his mind on the job.

“I’m here baby,” Bucky says, although it’s soft just because he’s not sure Steve will hear him.

_“Auuuh?”_ Steve says, breathing a cloud of condensation over the window pane.

“That’s right, I’m here,” Bucky answers, splaying his fingers on the glass, “I’m right here, sugar-”

Steve’s hand works faster, Bucky hears the rhythm change, and his brows draw together, his hips start to rock. Bucky can’t tell if he’s trying shove back onto his own fingers or if he’s trying to thrust forward into thin air, but it doesn’t matter which he’s aiming for.

He makes an unhappy sound - evidently it ain’t enough - and he shoves his body up the glass as he shuffles closer, presses his whole torso to the window again, just like the first time, and starts to fuck up against the glass.

_“Ahhn, ahhn, ahhhn,”_ he says, but his eyes are open and he’s watching Bucky.

Bucky touches his fingers to the glass, turning his hand as he does so that he’d be cupping Steve’s balls if they didn’t have anything between them, and Steve gasps in shock, skin dragging against the window as he shoves forward, hard, and then he’s groaning hard, loud, and coming up the glass again - there’s a moment where he paints the window with it, but it’s all smeared on his next thrust between his skin and the glass, and he keeps himself going for a while working his fingers inside himself.

“Hey,” Bucky says, ‘cause he’s due back now, “hey, baby, hi, I brought lube if you want to-”

_“Ohh,”_ Steve says, and it shudders as it leaves his lips, he squeezes his eyes shut. _“Oh, f- Ple- Ah, ah, Bu-ha-ucky, ohhn,”_ and, uh okay, that’s….

He keeps thrusting against the window, hipbones knocking against the glass, Bucky watches him, his own chest heaving in sympathy, searching Steve’s face for some semblance of recognition but it’s…it ain’t there, there’s nothing.

“Baby?” Bucky says, and he didn’t think his heart could sink much lower but there it goes, maybe somewhere around his knees by now. “Baby, doll, can you hear me?”

Okay, Steve’s gonna give himself bruises if he keeps smacking his hipbones against the window like that. 

“Gotta- _Stop it,_ baby, you gotta stop-”

Steve winces, does it again, and another time, thunk, thunk, and and then one more _thunk_, and then he sinks down, knees sliding backwards, chest and shoulders and face taking the brunt of his weight as he _squee-yoos_ down the window, what the hell-

“Steve!” Bucky yells, thumping his metal fist against the glass.

Steve startles, the sweat on his skin the only thing that’s stopped him getting a goddamn rug burn from the gla- a goddamn _glass burn_ \- and then he fuckin’

He bangs his _teeth_ against the glass!

_“Steve!”_ Bucky yells, slapping his flesh hand over the place on the glass where Steve hit his teeth, cursing a moment later because he can’t protect Steve’s mouth from the glass, and Steve’s face screws up, he pulls back away from the window with a noise that sounds an awful lot like a sob, fingers coming free with another of those _noises_.

_“Uhhwanna,”_ he says, although Bucky doesn’t know exactly what it is he wants that he’s smacking his mouth-

He wants to suck Bucky’s dick, Jesus, as though he wasn’t already hard enough about this, as though he wasn’t already fucking terrified and loathing himself about being so turned on when Steve’s got no contro-

“Hey,” Bucky says, because Steve’s tipping sideways and then dragging his limbs across the vinyl flooring in some semblance of a crawl. “Hey, Steve, where-”

_“Ahh,”_ Steve says, and he sounds like he’s got something he wants, sounds like he does when Bucky says ‘catch me if you can’ sometimes. 

He’s after the toys.

“Lube,” Bucky says, jogging the few steps along the window frame to follow Steve, “lube, baby, it’s all for you but use lube-”

He rips the pump off the top of the bottle and gets it all over his hands, tips the bottle up and somehow doesn’t get _all_ of it on the floor and, palms full, he says,

“Haah,” a manic grin splitting his face, white teeth against flushed skin, staring at his slick hands. 

And then he throws himself backwards to lie on his back on the floor, makes another manic sort of breathless laugh-sounds, and then hikes his thighs up to his chest and shoves three fingers in his ass as he smiles, lube slicking the way - although, Bucky can see, his hole is pink and wet and loose already.

“Ahh,” Steve says, on a breath, tilts his hips up and stretches his arm out to get his fingers further inside, pulls his knees outward to open himself up more.

He wraps the sopping wet fingers of his other hand around his cock - it’s purpling now up by the head, at his frenulum - and starts thrusting and jerking in earnest.

Bucky kneels there, can’t help it, stares at him.

Pale skin turned red with exertion, shadowed with freckles and slick with sweat, strong fingers pumping hard and fast into his pliant, rosy rim while his dick slides fast and wet into his lube-soaked fist, the head popping past the ring of his fingers over and over and over.

Steve smiles at the ceiling, eyes half-closed, mouth hanging open, fucking himself mercilessly, making soft little moaning noises as he points his toes, feet curling, tongue wedged in the the corner of his lips.

He’s gorgeous, he’s mind-bendingly beautiful - he doesn’t do this that often for Bucky, certainly not unless Bucky asks, but to see him like this now, outside the comfort of their private room, outside the comfort of a soft bed or a firm couch, outside the comfort of the small, intimate space they make for themselves, here Steve is, flat on his back in the middle of a brightly lit room with no furniture, right by the giant observation window Bucky’s watching him from.

It feels like a peep show, like a blue movie, like Bucky’s watching his own fantasies on the silver screen, and he stares, doesn’t even realize he’s putting his hands on the glass until he has to drop one to press it against the front of his pants. 

Steve says,

_“Ah! Ah! Ahhhhh!”_ and pumps his fingers violently into his ass as he screws up his face, pulling hard on his cock - pushes his knees out so they’re almost either side of him, too, cants his hips upward, and then kind of spasms, his body curling inward as he shoots off up his stomach and chest, the resolve keeping his legs up kind of semi-failing as his limbs twitch, as his legs kick out, as he laughs through an orgasm that really isn’t that long after his last one.

“Steve,” Bucky croaks, his mouth dry - as much as Steve can’t say anything besides weird noises, Bucky’s having a hell of a time saying anything except Steve’s name.

Bucky feels wrecked and, okay, he knows that if this is how he feels, how must Steve feel, but Steve’s happily circling his fingers up against his prostate right now - which Bucky can tell because his dick is still leaking - and saying, “mmmh,” like he’s eating something nice. 

Well sort of - his mouth is open so it’s more of a “nghh” but he’s smiling and he’s moving his tongue around like something tastes good, and he’s writhing on the ground like a happy puppy or something-

It’s all incredibly disconcerting - he’s happy like a little…he’s. It’s like kid-in-a-candy-store stuff but that is definitely _very much a man _fingering himself on the decontamination room floor, and Bucky is not unaffected. It’s only the fact that he knows Steve was the only one exposed that stops him asking for a blood test. 

_“Aohh,”_ Steve says, and kind of sags against the floor.

The movement draws his fingers mostly out of his ass, and his other hand slows enough that he doesn’t look quite so much like he’s trying to yank it off, but it’s still rough. 

His skin’s so red, despite the lube - what has he come now, four times? That’s usually his limit if they push hard, he doesn’t like to come too many times in a row, though he can - but he usually looks about done by the fourth one, instead of right now when he looks like he’s ready to start all over again.

Okay, he actually does, Jesus.

“Steve, honey,” Bucky says, and he frowns down at him, knocks on the glass, but Steve’s not listening, Steve’s starting up again instead. 

He winces this time, soon as he’s got a good grip on himself, brows pulling together, teeth bared and, for a second, he lets go and looks down. Huh. He says,

_“Uh?”_ high and breathy, like he’s not sure where his dick is - or like he’s not sure why his dick feels the way it does, and then he spots Bucky. “Mmbuh,” he says, not really forming Bucky’s name but close enough, and then grabs his dick again.

Standard procedure for them sometimes, sure, but Steve’s really wincing this time and Bucky doesn’t like how his toes curl on every jerk, not this time. This doesn’t look like the times Steve’s waiting for him on the bed, or the times Bucky tells him to do something he can watch and Steve obliges - this looks like pain and, maybe, compulsion. Obviously, it’s definitely compulsion. But it _looks_ like it now.

He’s hot, and sweet, and his body was always to die for even if it was a different kind of desire before, same for his face. He used to be narrow-jawed and bird-boned and now he’s thick with two ‘c’s and people call him a beefcake and his jaw’s a lantern and his skin’s a peach, Bucky’s mouth waters watching the slick head of Steve’s dick peek out and out from his fist, the strawberry sunburn of an orgasm flush over his body, but it ain’t quittin’ and he’s starting to look like it’s a very bad idea to continue.

But Steve’s watching him, wincing and hissing through his teeth and jerking his dick and Bucky bites his lip - it seemed like a good idea to keep him separate before. He’s a supersoldier - if he put his mind to it he could just step right through the glass and contaminate all of them. If he wanted to, he could break out and… Bucky doesn’t want to think about what he might do to the normies if he got out, he’s never entirely sure that they’re evenly matched enough that Bucky could stop him - after all, Steve won the first fight they had, and only lost the second on purpose, after choking Bucky into unconsciousness halfway through. 

Steve’s stronger than him, he’s pretty sure, more determined than him, because he’s more determined than everyone, and very much not in control of his actions right now. Which is why Bucky’s mad at his dick when it hears Mr Pavlov ring its personal bell and immediately gets up on its hind legs.

_“Fuck me?”_ Steve says, gasping it, his voice rising like a question so it’s coy and desperate and that’s, okay, that’s Bucky’s Kropotkin. Kripkenstien? God, _one_ of those fucking K-words, the way Steve does that, the way he makes himself open and vulnerable and sweet and suppliant when he isn’t _any_ of those things for _any_ other person?

Yeah. That’s Bucky’s K-thing.

He’s still going, too - lips swollen, cheeks flushed, sweat running in rivulets - it’s collecting in the valleys of his abs, in his belly button, in the dip between his pecs, and then his nipples are so pink and so prominent, his whole dick and everything, everything between his legs, it’s all so pink and it looks so- 

Fucking _Kryptonite,_ for _fuck’s_ sake-

Steve looks like a dream and Bucky’s having a nightmare.

_“Bucky, baby, doll, sugar, honey, fuck me, fuck me,_ please,_ I want you, I want you so bad-”_

Yeah, fuck you, universe - give Bucky a guy who blushes when Bucky gets explicit and then have him learn how to dirty-talk when literally the last thing Bucky will do to him at this point is give in. Yeah? Well nobody gave Bucky to Steve and nobody gave Steve to Bucky - they both had to fucking fight for each other and Bucky sure as shit isn’t letting go of him now. 

He kneels down, because Steve’s on his back with his knees up and his fingers inside himself and his fist around his dick and he’s fuckin’ _pointed at_ Bucky, so if Bucky kneels down, it almost looks like, _almost_ looks like he could fuck Steve. He’s in the right position, the only issue is his dick won’t get through the glass. 

“I can’t reach you, baby,” he says, “but-” and Steve-

Oh, Jesus Christ, no.

Steve cries. 

His face screws up and his pretty mouth turns down and he sobs, sobs again.

“No, nono, Baby, don’t, it’s not- I-”

_“Buck,”_ he groans, _“Bucky, please-”_

And Bucky shakes his head, presses his hands to the glass - he doesn’t know what the best course of action is here because there’s literally nothing in his life experience to go on, but he knows he’s got to be careful about what he says. So far, Steve’s preoccupied fucking himself, but if Bucky says something dumb and draws his attention to the fact that Steve could probably get out easily, then Steve _will._

“Baby,” he says, and he kneels up when Steve’s head goes back, “Stevie, sweetheart, can you hear me? I need you to listen, okay? You gotta listen to me ‘cause I _wanna_ fuck you, baby, I wanna get my dick all in there, make you feel good, I want that. You want that?”

“I want it,” Steve says, in a voice that is so far from the voice he usually uses that Bucky gets goosebumps from weirding-out.

“Well honey, I want it too, nothin’ I want more than inside you right now-”

Steve rouses, more distressed.

_“Then-”_

“I can’t, baby, ‘cause you’re sick. Okay? You understand?” Steve’s hand slows a little, just the one on his dick, the other one’s twisting still, “you got something we don’t know what it is, and we’re workin’ on it, you’re gonna be just fine, but if I got in there-”

_“I give it to you?”_ Steve says, voice wobbling. _“D’I give it to you Bucky, you okay?”_

He’s gonna cry again, Bucky can see the tears in his eyes.

“Fine and dandy, sugar, take a look. Yeah?”

Steve sniffs, his chest judders when his breathing shakes - narrowly avoided a meltdown but Bucky’s not sure how long that’s gonna last. He looks at Bucky.

_“Uh,”_ Steve says. _“Oh. You’re-”_ Breath hitchin’ like a kid’s, like his own when he used to have asthma._ “You’re okay?”_

“I’m okay, baby,” Bucky says. 

_“You’re okay?”_ Steve murmurs, and his voice is smaller now, he’s slipping.

“I’m okay, baby,” Bucky says again.

_“Want you to fuck me,”_ Steve says and, for an awful second, Bucky thinks maybe this is how the rest of the afternoon is gonna go - Steve’s gonna perpetually forget that Bucky’s not allowed in, and cry a lot while he makes pearl drops on his lonesome - but it ain’t so. _“I’m better soon,”_ he says. _“Be better soon, you’ll fuck me?” _

“Yeah, baby,” ‘cause sure, why not, sayin’ no’s not gonna help at this point now is it? “Soon as you’re better I’ll get in you-”

_“Want your hand,”_ Steve says, and his voice is different again but wow, down the octave, hard and fucking dark with it, too, _“get your whole hand in me.”_

Uh, okay, no - if it turns out Steve does want to try fisting after all the things he’s said about not wanting to try fisting, they’ll talk about it when they’re both compos, thanks.

“Sure,” he says, a little unhappy about it, he doesn’t like promising things he’s not gonna follow through on, and he doesn’t like saying yes to things Steve’s not lucid enough to understand how to ask for, not even lucid enough to know what he’s asking really. “Sure, after, when you’re-”

_“Want your dick, Bucky, want you to fuck me senseless-”_ Think you already got that one, pal. _“Get your fingers in, all them little pieces, ridges, get your whole arm-”_

Ha, shit, the _metal arm!?_ NO.

“We’ll talk about it,” Bucky says, hugely turned off, no the fist of hydra is not _that kind of fist why is Bucky’s brain thinking this_, and Steve moves faster.

_“Talk about it,”_ he echoes, _“tell me, Bucky, tell me you- Uhn- A- Bucky- _Buck-”

Bucky can’t bite back the snort in time, what the fuck, ‘a bucky buck’? Which even rhymes, God. Steve comes up his stomach again and Christ that’s a lot, that ain’t fair, he should be dry. This things makin’ more jizz just so Steve has to get rid, that’s not right, that ain’t fair, Steve’s clearly doing his damndest-

_“Ow,”_ he says, a whine, a whinge really but, what? Ow? _“Ow, ow-ow,”_ he hisses in through his teeth and that, there, _those_ aren’t sweat drops leaking from his eyes. _“Ow,”_ he sobs, but he ain’t quittin’ neither, and Bucky shakes his head, he’s gotta do _something_-

“Baby,” Bucky says, and it ain’t even a warning, it’s an exclamation, it’s his mouth speaking before his brain thinks. “Baby!”

Steve sobs again, gets going faster, and Bucky pushes himself up and runs to the door.

“He’s hurtin’,” he says, and the four science people look at him. “He’s, like he’s-” God he hates this thing, hates what it’s doing to Steve, hates that he has to mention it to other people, no matter how big and impressive their diplomas. “He’s cryin’ with it, he’s hurtin’ himself.”

Helen Cho frowns.

“Where’s the pain?”

Bucky doesn’t shout, well done Bucky Barnes, he doesn’t throw things or punch a wall, he takes a deep fucking breath and says,

“How the fuck should I know, Helen!?” Okay not such a good job. “I’m sorry, Jesus, I don’t know, I can’t get a word out of him that makes sense, he’s just jerkin’ it and crying and tellin’ me ‘ow’ and I don’t know what to do. Okay? I don’t-” Oh, wow, is Bucky gonna cry too? “I don’t know what to do.”

“I will go,” Helen Cho says, Dr Cho, she’s a Doctor, “I will see him - I helped him with the reconstructive surgery after the-”

“Don’t,” Bucky says - he knows, that alien that kicked him in the nuts that one fucking time, he _knows_, and his brain tries to tell him that’s a good thing, as Helen Cho leaves the little side room and walks into the big room and over to Steve even though Bucky doesn’t want another living soul to see him, even as Bucky’s brain tries to say, _See? Even if it’s ruptured they can save his di-_

And then she just stands there. Like, Bucky’s mortified on Steve’s behalf, and furious on his own and Steve’s behalf, and upset on his and Steve’s behalf, and she’s just standing there watching him point his _everything_ at the ceiling and pummel himself to get off.

“What is it?” Bucky says. “Huh? What are you-”

She shakes her head. 

“I can’t tell, because he’s moving too quickly, what hurts. You can’t make him tell us?” 

“Steve, where’d’s it hurt?”

_“Ow,”_ Steve whines, _“hurts, Buck…”_

“No,” Bucky tells her, and she nods. 

“I don’t know if it’s his genitals or the overstimulation,” she says, and Bucky’s working hard at being a modern man, Bucky spent a lot of time in the army, but his face is still flaming to hear a lovely, sweet, smart, quiet doctor fucking just _say_ shit like that.

“How do we,” Bucky says, and then they’re screwed ‘cause there’s only really one way to figure out which bit of Steve’s hurting, and that’s by asking, and the only way to get him to tell is to make him stop. 

Which, yeah, be advised, pig currently cruising at thirty-five thousand feet.

“There,” Dr Cho says, “are suits. You mentioned them before, we have them.”

“You want me to go in there and stop him jerking off?” he says. “You know what happened to both of us the last time I tried to stop him doing anything?”

“Most of Washington does,” says Helen Cho in an interesting display of ex_cuse me?!_

But Bucky deserves it, he supposes, he hasn’t been polite (although hello why would anyone expect him to be) and yeah most of the world knows what happened the last time he tried to stop Steve doing something. Still though, Helen Cho’s face isn’t angry and she doesn’t look like it’s a reprimand, maybe she’s trying to reassure him. The whole, it’s true, Washington and America and the world know what happened, he’s.

“I’m being a dick, I’m sorry,” he says, even though apologies still taste like humiliation on the back of his tongue. 

“Your husband is incapacitated,we’re dealing with an embarrassing medical issue, and the cure has not yet been forthcoming. It’s quite all right, but please remember, I have only as much information as you.”

And Bucky looks at her, and then at Steve, who’s-

Helen Cho watches him but Bucky can’t, not with her standing right there. Maybe his mind thinks it’s less terrible if only one of them is watching, maybe he’s too ashamed to be looking at his gorgeous, writhing husband fucking himself with a lady doctor standing right there. But Steve’s weak, that’s for sure. Like physically, currently, his fingers aren’t as tight as they were, although it doesn’t seem to be stopping him. 

Steve’s coming again, and this time it really hurts, Bucky can hear it. 

“Alright,” he says. And then he reaches out and flicks off the comm for a second, making probably one of the hardest, most embarrassing decisions he’s ever had to make - worse for it being not-about-himself. “But I need all of you to come back in here to work, ‘cause if he figures out he can break the glass, or if he tears through my suit and I’m exposed, I need you all to be able to see it ASAP and get out like greased lightnin’, I ain’t foolin’. I get exposed it goes one of two ways - we start maulin’ each other, or we look for fresh blood.”

Dr Cho watches Steve, who’s clearly not enjoying himself even though he’s starting over, and then looks at Bucky.

“We’ll put you in first,” she says, “and then I’ll bring the others in. We can mirror the window-”

“No,” Bucky says. “You need to see, if it gets in with me I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to tell you. One of you needs to keep a lookout. Stand by here and talk to me. Okay? And I-”

He doesn’t want to say this. This is the last thing in the world he wants to say.

“I might not know where I am,” he says. “If it gets me. So I might try and escape. So you need to see us, we need to see you. _I_ do.”

She nods. And this at least feels like they’re doing something, even though it has the awful detached sensation of a mission-cleanup, even though it isn’t fair, even though it doesn’t feel like he’s doing enough for Steve. 

“Of course,” she says. “I’ll show you to the suits.”

~

Bucky’s nervous when they test the seal on his suit. More nervous when they put him through the human-sized-airlock thing. And he’s not ashamed to admit he’s sweating when he makes it into the observation room. 

The suit, because guess whose technology it is, tells him the ambient temperature in here is up. It’s ninety degrees in here. It also tells him Steve’s body temperature.

He’s at a hundred and five point six. 

“Christ,” Bucky mutters, and he goes over to the little doggy door whatever in the corner and grabs the toys and the lube. Steve’s moved around some in the time it’s taken Bucky to get ready and get inside, pushing his feet flat on the floor to thrust up into his fist.

He is weaker, Bucky can see that, one of his legs won’t work like the other one, he’s taken his fingers out of his ass because his arm is tired. He’s still loose and open, though, Bucky can see that.

“What’s the first thing?” he asks, and that’s when Steve sees him.

He startles pretty hard first, and then he says,

_“Bucky!”_

And his voice is a different kind of fuzzy through the suit’s speakers, but it still feels like a huge degree of separation from him all the same. 

“Hey, sweetheart,” Bucky says, and he kneels down next to Steve. “Hey.”

_“Stop him from masturbating,”_ Helen Cho’s voice says, _“continue stimulation via other means for the time being.”_

So fuck him with the vibrating buttplug and try and keep his hands off his dick. Okay. Bucky breathes hard through his nose.

_“I knew,”_ Steve says, and he’s smiling, he’s got tears in his eyes, God, Bucky feels like a heel,_ “I knew you’d- Bucky, I knew-”_

“Gimme your hands, sweetheart,” and Steve does. 

They’re slick with sweat and lube and come but he does, he puts his hands in Bucky’s but, just as he’s about to do something, Bucky puts both of Steve’s hands in one of his own and holds them there.

_“Huh?”_ Steve says, and then looks miserable,_ “no, Bucky, why-”_

“I’m gonna make you come,” Bucky says, blushing hard but saying it anyway, watching Steve’ face go from sad to surprised to grateful in a few seconds, he still feels like a heel.

_“Yeah,”_ Steve says, _“yeah, please, please Bucky,”_

“But,” Bucky says, and Steve’s smile fades again, God, this isn’t fair. “You’re not allowed to help. Remember? You’re sick. You have to let me hold your hands and I’ll do it for you. Okay? I’m gonna make it good for you, I promise. Okay?”

Steve looks at him, doesn’t seem to understand for a long few seconds.

_’SUBJECT TEMPERATURE RISING, ONE HUNDRED AND SIX POINT EIGHT.’_

Jesus, Jesus.

“He’s at one-oh-six-point-eight,” Bucky says, tries to use the same inflection as the one he’s been using to talk to Steve ‘cause he’s desperately trying not to freak him out.

_“It’s all right, Sergeant, we have the same readouts,”_ Glasses Lamarr’s voice says, _“you just worry about him.”_

Bucky nods.

“Okay,” he says, and Steve nods.

_“Okay,”_ he says, searching Bucky’s face. _“Okay, Bucky. Okay.”_

And like…if there were anything Bucky would choose not to do in front of people, this is pretty fucking high on the list. Doing this. In front of people. When Steve’s consent holds about as much water as a paper bag.

With Bucky dressed in a giant squeaky condom with massive rubber gloves and a comedy welding mask. 

“Christ,” Bucky mutters. “Got it. Okay. Okay.”

He picks up the goddamn vibrating fucking buttplug, great, and he manages with one hand to actually get it covered in lube because there’s fucking lube _everywhere_, and then he folds Steve’s arms up against his chest, holds his wrists against his sternum and, with his other hand-

_“Aahhh?”_ Steve says shakily, his eyes rolling back as his head goes back too, back arching - he’s so loose it’d barely matter any other time, and there’s a reason this particular one ain’t in regular rotation, but he sure seems to like it now.

He smiles, doesn’t even fight against Bucky, just lifts one leg out of the way and lets Bucky fill him up with the plug. And then, well. 

Then Bucky turns it on. 

And then Bucky has a problem.

Because first, Steve says, ‘oh,’ a couple times and pushes against Bucky’s hands just ‘cause that’s what he does. But then his ‘oh’ noises turn to ‘ah’ noises and they get louder, then his face screws up, and then he starts to make awful, wounded sounds, clearly in pain, starts pulling away from Bucky, feet scrabbling on the floor - it’s a good job he’s weak ‘cause Bucky’s only got the one hand to hold him down with.

Bucky fumbles for the plug but Steve’s muscles are still moving around it and it’s slick with lube so it takes a couple times and, by then, Steve’s back to whining ‘ow,’ and trying to curl his body up.

Which means it’s the coming that’s hurting him. 

Shit.

“Cho,” Bucky says.

_“I see,”_ she tells him, _“we need to find restraints.”_

And just as Bucky’s about to ask why, as though he couldn’t figure it out anyway, one of Steve’s hands slips out of his own, and he grabs his clearly abused dick and starts jerking off again.

“Ah, Jesus,” Bucky mutters, letting go of the other. 

Immediately, Steve grabs for him. He’s weak and uncoordinated, but one hand goes for Bucky’s head, the other comes up between Bucky’s legs, and instinct makes Bucky flinch, curl up, makes him push Steve’s lower hand away first - he’s got memories of being grabbed like that in rooms like these.

And then, in a moment of more panic, Bucky realizes Steve’s gone for his head because _Steve knows how to get into the HAZMAT suit_, and he reels back out of the way to get out of Steve’s grip, Jesus Christ.

He grabs Steve’s hands again.

“How fucking close are you?”

There’s a silence which stretches too long in Bucky’s humble fucking opinion thanks, and then Glasses Lamarr says, 

_“Not as close as we’d like,”_ and Bucky intends to shoot her a pretty fucking terrifying look through the glass except then he realizes something.

Bucky hates himself for two reasons - firstly that he speaks without thinking about the implication of his words first, and secondly that he says what he says without running it by Steve.

“Would a sample help?”

Smart Mouth looks at him.

_“We have blood,”_ he frowns. _“Do…you mean..?”_

“Yeah, I do,” Bucky says. “It’s all over the window. It’s all over _everything,_ would that help?”

The scientists exchange glances.

_“I…think it would?”_ Shy Guy says, and Bucky nods.

“Okay then,” he says. “Get me swabs.”

~

They get him swabs - they get him a cup, too, because Steve’s at himself again while Bucky’s getting samples off the window. 

He sends the swabs through and then goes back to Steve and collects what he can literally off Steve’s stomach, sends that through too. 

“Steve,” he says, crawling back over the floor to get to him, “you gotta stop, you’re gonna hurt-”

He tries to take Steve’s hands away from his dick, tries to wrestle Steve off himself, but Steve gets sad again almost instantaneously. And boy he really _is_ weak - Bucky’s got Steve’s wrists in his hands and Steve can’t even pull them away.

_“No, Bucky,”_ he says, like he did in ‘24 when he had a fever and Bucky was trying to cool him down while Sarah was out at work, _“no, don’t, I need-”_

“Baby,” Bucky says, tries to follow Steve’s head to make eye contact but he’s starting to squirm, “baby listen to me-”

_“No, Bucky, please-”_

“Baby I can’t let you, you know I can’t let you-”

Steve dry sobs, and Bucky almost fucking sobs himself, he feels his eyes prickle, he feels his throat tighten.

“Baby, please,” he says, and Steve shakes his head.

_“No, Bucky, please,_ please,_ I need to-”_

“I can’t, Baby,” Bucky says, and he sits down on the floor instead of kneeling, can’t hold Steve but, God, he wants to, “I’m sorry, sweetheart, I can’t. Baby, I cant.”

And Steve’s just sobbing now. It’s quiet, he’s not wailing and screaming like a baby, but it’s too much for him to try and speak. It almost sounds like he’s coughing, but Bucky knows he’s not.

“I know baby,” he says softly, tries again to gather Steve’s wrists into one of his hands so he can cradle Steve’s skull in his palm, “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Steve doesn’t stop pulling against Bucky’s grip but Bucky can feel that he’s getting weaker. When did he last drink? Jesus. He’s not sweating so much any more and Bucky hopes it’s a good sign right up until his suit says,

_’SUBJECT TEMPERATURE RISING, ONE HUNDRED AND SEVEN POINT FIVE.’_

This could kill him, Bucky realizes abruptly. Out of everything, out of all the things he lived through, all the struggles they overcame, this thing’s pushing his body temp higher and higher and it might kill him. It might give him brain damage so severe it kills him before the serum can pull him back, Bucky’s furious. Stabbed, shot, beaten, chronically ill, and Steve dies from not being able to jerk off fast enough, Bucky can’t wipe his eyes because he’s wearing a helmet and so he shakes his head instead.

Cho distracts him a couple minutes later - okay, it’s not distraction, she’s found the mag cuffs, and Steve _hates_ those but they’re still the only thing that’s gonna work - but he has to let go of Steve to retrieve them because they’re coming in through the little cat flap thing, and he knows as soon as he lets go, Steve will start up again. 

It still pisses him off when he does. 

“Fuck’s sake,” he mutters, but then Steve gasps,

_“I’m sorry,”_ and Bucky thinks he might throw up in the suit.

“Not you, baby,” he says, grabs the cuffs and turns back, “it’s not you, I’m mad at the people who hurt you,” Bucky says, and Steve makes a sad little noise, “but I want you to look at me.”

Steve tries but his face is all screwed up again, and Bucky bites his lip and shakes his head and shuts his eyes for a second.

“Baby, look at me,” he says, and Steve can’t. “Okay,” he says, gets up onto his knees for more leverage. “God, I hope you forgive me for this.”

And he snaps Steve’s wrists into the cuffs before Steve can register what he’s doing, yanks Steve’s hands up over his head, and pins them to the floor.

“Okay!” he says, pretty loudly, and then the room is humming because the floor’s got magnets in it because they’re Avengers and sometimes there’s no other way to hold them down.

_“What?”_ Steve says, tips his head back to try and see, face crumpling. _“Bucky? Bucky!”_

Bucky’s never seen him do this, he realizes. He’s never seen Steve silent with tears, he’s never seen Steve sobbing weakly with his face screwed up and his voice a wreck. Steve cries like a child and there’s nothing Bucky can do. 

_“Please,”_ Steve says, _“please, please, just let me, please, it hurts, you said I could, you said you’d help-”_ and then he sobs. _“You said you’d…”_ he shakes his head. _“Help.”_

_’SUBJECT TEMPERATURE RISING, ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHT POINT THREE.’_

Christ, Jesus Christ-

“I need ice,” Bucky says, “I need ice!!”

He doesn’t know which of the scientists scramble to get it but, at this point, he doesn’t fucking care.

“It’s comin’, sweetheart, I’m gonna-” he has to swallow hard past the lump in his throat. “You’re gonna be okay.”

_“Heart rate still rising,”_ somebody says, and Bucky grabs for the ice as soon as it’s through the hatch, hovers over Steve for a moment with it, helpless. 

What the hell, where should he fucking put it?

_“There’s more of it in his semen,”_ Shy Guy says, and Bucky shuts his eyes and tries to think.

Propagation through emission.

He puts the ice pack on Steve’ neck because it’s his brain that’ll get damaged if they can’t bring his temperature down, and his necks’ fucking closest to his head.

“How do you stop it?” Bucky bites out, and Steve’s reduce mainly to sounds now, struggling against the cold of the ice pack - he always used to hate compresses, too.

_“I’m working on it,”_ Glasses Lamarr says and Bucky can’t help it.

“Go faster!” he says. “It’s gonna turn his brain to mush!”

There’s water now, because Steve’s melting the ice fast. It trickles over his throat and chest, it gets everywhere. The ice is fucking melting all over the place and it’s worse, it’s so much worse than they thought, because Steve goes from making little noises to shaking his head, grimacing again.

He says, 

_“No, no,”_ and pushes against the floor with his feet and then-

“Oh, shit,” Bucky whispers, helpless as Steve _comes anyway_ with a grating cry of pain, not a hand on him, not a thing inside him. “Oh, shit.”

_“There!”_ one of them yells, Bucky can’t tell ‘cause he’s not fucking listening to them, and then there’s movement.

Bucky risks a glance back over his shoulder before he looks back at Steve and, first, they’re all moving, all the scientist people are moving around. Second, when he looks back at Steve, he’s astounded by how red and wet he looks on the floor. He looks like some sort of horrible mishap, like someone’s spilled acid on him, or like one of those weird creatures from those space films Natasha likes.

“Steve,” he says. 

This is the grade-A weirdest shit Bucky's ever seen - this isn't Steve, this guy. This guy isn't acting like his Steve, isn't acting like his best guy, this is a guy who's been broken, this is the kind of shit you see from people who live through torture and Bucky's a fucking _expert_ on that, thanks - this guy's a snivelling, begging mess but the worst part of it's maybe the best part of it too. This stuff has taken all of those inhibitions, all that ability to hold yourself together, it's taken resolve and restraint and stoicism and understanding off Steve but it's _Steve_, somewhere in there, and that means ('cause Bucky's an expert on this, too) the best remedy, the best balm, the best person to stand here and offer comfort is, you guessed it, Sergeant James B Barnes the first-as-far-as-he-knows. 

"Hey," he says softly, wiping dripping strands back off Steve's forehead "hi, baby, it's okay-"

_"Buck,"_ Steve sobs, and this ain't fair, it ain't fair, what if Steve thinks of this every time now, huh? 

What if he never wants any more lovin' from Bucky after this, what if this is what he thinks of when Bucky tries to treat him nice? He'll blow that bridge up when he comes to it but it's on his mind, for sure.

Steve pulls against his restraints and arches his back and it's Bucky he's trying to get to, like a frightened kid or a desperate animal, he just wants Bucky and Bucky’s an internationally revered ex-assasin with an arm of vibranium and a heart to match most of the time, but the old ticker almost splits clean in two with the look on Steve’s face, the way Steve pushes his head into Bucky's hand.

"It's okay, baby," Bucky says, soft as he can manage - Steve's on the edge of something nasty, Bucky thinks - exhaustion, maybe some kind of last-ditch effort to break out. Or worse.

He's frightened, and Bucky's not sure he's ever seen it written so plainly on Steve's face, even though it's clearly not Steve in charge on the inside. 

_"Bucky, please,_" he whispers, shakes his head as he stares, mouth pulled wide as he tries not to sob again,_ "please, please just touch me, Buck, it-"_ he has to stop to swallow hard, his voice thick,_ "Buck, it _hurts_, it hurts,"_ and Bucky doesn't do it, can't give him what he asks for.

He leans close and sweeps his gloved hand over Steve's slick skin instead - it's not even contact but it's close as they can get, and Steve lifts his head, cranes his neck. Bucky doesn't doubt he'd French the fucking visor at his point, but he keeps far enough out of reach that Steve can't.

_"Please,"_ Steve says, and Bucky knows it ain't the right thing, knows the right thing to do is let it run its course, make it leave his system on its own but it’s so, so difficult not to give in.

He ain’t asking like he always does, it ain’t sweet, he don’t want it, it’s like when somebody shows you a nightmare or takes you somewhere you’re too scared to be - and Steve says it himself a moment later, helpless in a way he never would be if he were in his right mind.

_“Please, Buck, make it stop,”_ and Bucky keeps his hand on Steve’s head, looks up at the window.

“It’s soon, doll, it’s comin’, I promise,” he says, watches the doctors to-ing and fro-ing, and Steve groans, half-screaming through his teeth - Bucky knows what he’ll see when he looks down but looks down anyway and yeah, there he goes, God. “It’s okay, baby, let it go, it’s alright,” not like Steve has a choice either way, but maybe Bucky’s voice’ll help, God knows it did when they were younger, God knows Steve’s sure helped Bucky when Bucky needed a light in the dark. “Hang in there, sugar, you’re almost out, I gotcha.”

Steve just turns his head away. His body shakes, his skin is so red and so wet and his poor dick, it doesn’t look like it should, it looks chafed and swollen, and not like good swollen.

It must hurt so much, that whole area’s flushed with blood, Bucky doesn’t know what to do with it but he’ll get in a tub full of ice with Steve later if that’s what Steve wants, he’ll do anything just as long as Steve’s alright to do it for. 

“What the hell is taking so long?” Bucky says, his other hand on the side of the helmet to activate his comm unit.

_“I have it!”_ one of the voices says, and Bucky looks back at the little hatch. 

“Steve,” he says, “Steve, I gotta move just over there, it’s okay, alright, sugar? I’ll be right back-”

_“No!”_ okay, that’s panic. _“No, Bucky please, _please_, don’t, don’t go,”_ and he realizes he’s never getting Steve to agree to it so he just goes.

In that moment in particular (obviously, the rest of the time, he’s aware that he used to shoot presidents and get his brain electrocuted and then call that a regular day in the life of James double-B) it feels like the worst thing he’s ever done. Steve says,

_“No,”_ but he cries it, that’s really what it is. 

He doesn’t speak, he doesn’t yell, he sobs because Bucky’s left him all alone, and Bucky’s seen kids in disaster-stricken places who, too young to walk, sit and cry and suck their fingers, calling for family that ain’t gonna come. Now, he’s part of a team that picks them up and helps. He used to be the guy programmed to walk straight past, and that’s how this feels.

He’s back within fifteen seconds, within ten, even, and then he’s squeaking to a halt next to Steve. Steve says,

_“Uh?”_ like he’s surprised Bucky came back, and then,_ “Bucky?”_ like he’s more grateful than he can ever convey, and Bucky shakes his head.

“I’m here,” he says, “I’m here.”

_“Bucky,”_ Steve says, his face crumpling up again, and he sounds relieved - Bucky’s hoping he can get him to stay that way.

“This’ll work,” he says, and then he looks back over his shoulder instinctively - they can’t see him but he can see them. “This’ll work, right?” 

_“It should,”_ that’s Dr Cho,_ “obviously it’s untested,”_ and Bucky looks at the tube he’s holding. 

Syringe. Untested.

“You got another?” he says.

_“What?”_ one of the scientists says, and Bucky uncaps the needle.

Steve’s making little burbly noises that sound a little bit like words but aren’t really, and Bucky looks at the needle shining. 

“You got another one of these things?” he says, and Dr Cho says,

_“We do. It…may not be safe considering you weren’t exposed in the first place.”_

Smart lady - she knows why he’s asking.

“Right,” Bucky says. “Watch me give a fuck. Get me another.”

And then he holds the syringe steady in his hand and jabs it through the fabric of his right sleeve. Part of him wishes he didn’t know where but his veins are easy to find - he self-administered plenty when the techs used to be too scared to do it, and he’s still able to hit roughly the right spot without a problem. Depress the plunger, there’s the burn of a liquid moving into tissue it’s not meant to be in so maybe he missed, but then…

_’CONTAINMENT - BREACHED. CONTAINMENT - BREACHED. CONTAINMENT - BREACHED.’_

He ignores the voice, makes the right hand gesture when the locater diagram comes up on his visor like a HUD and then looks at Steve when it swipes aside.

But…

Nothing, nothing for five seconds, for ten. Then a wave of goosebumps but warm, like somebody waved over him with a metal detector wand made of glowing hot metal, and then nothing.

The hatch behind him hisses and he goes for it, throws himself across the floor and then grabs for the new little tube, gets himself back before Steve’s turned his head back and noticed he’s gone, gets the cap off.

_“Bucky?”_ Steve says, and Bucky doesn’t waste the time explaining, doesn’t bother trying to get it through to Steve, he just jabs the needle into Steve’s inner elbow and pushes the antidote. _“Oww!”_ Steve says, and he looks betrayed for a long few moments, like Bucky punched him in the face when he was already down (he remembers, and that’s exactly what Steve looked like).

And then, for a second, Bucky has an awful feeling that that wave of heat he felt maybe wasn’t the antidote, maybe it was the fact that he put a hole in his suit. Maybe he broke containment and something got in and now he’s-

But then, like a whole new guy, suddenly there’s Steve.

His eyes open up, his face relaxes, his fists open and his chest stops heaving - for the most part, come on, he’s still breathing a little hard. His dick is sagging against his lower stomach, his limbs aren’t shaking, and he turns his head and looks up at Bucky. His whole body melts into the floor with a release of tension so great Bucky surprised he didn’t snap his spine, and he just looks at Bucky, shakes his head.

_“Buck,”_ he says, but it’s soft and it’s low and it’s full of an apology Steve doesn’t need to give.

Bucky yanks off his helmet and throws it aside, leans down and crashes their mouths together. Steve doesn’t even hesitate, kisses him back like they’ve been apart for months, and kisses him, and kisses him, and then Bucky pulls away and presses their foreheads together, sweat and skin. Steve’s not even out of the cuffs but Steve doesn’t seem to fucking care and so Bucky sure as fuck doesn’t either. 

“Fuck,” Steve says on a sigh, and Bucky settles his hand in the middle of Steve’s chest, away from anything that might be considered erogenous, and just stays there with Steve, who’s fine. “Ow.”

Who’s literally A-Okay, like the flick of a switch.

“It’s okay, baby,” he says, and Steve lifts his chin, nuzzles Bucky’s face - it’s a comfort thing, he does it a lot when they lie like this. “I got you.”

***

It isn't often Bucky gets Steve pliant like this, Steve's well aware of this. He's not annoyed by how protective Bucky's being, not even annoyed by how happy Bucky seems now - things like this are a mixed bag. Steve knows Bucky'd trade it for neither of them having had to go through what they had to go through, but they can't trade it out, so they're here. The sheets are clean and the bed's too small but Steve is who he is, and Bucky's not only just as well known, he's also a lot more frowny, so nobody's gonna tell Bucky to get off the bed. Steve certainly isn't, not now, not while he's curled around Steve's head and shoulders like a cat so Steve's body's nestled in the space made by Bucky's own. Bucky will be the wall that keeps him from the rest of the world, the shield to keep him from harm, Bucky will lie where he is and kill anyone who tries to touch Steve, if that's what Steve wants. It isn't - Steve's fine, he can handle himself, but he can't pretend it isn't nice to have Bucky here, with him, by him, behind him. Especially after this - it's…

Certainly not a problem either of them have had to deal with before. That's for sure. 

"And how are you feelin'?" Steve murmurs, and Bucky looks down at him - Steve's eyes are closed but he hears the movement.

"Two minds," he says, and Steve smiles a little. Bucky's therapist says (because Bucky tells him most of what his therapist says,) 'nothing ever comes of trying to hide something important from your spouse,' and Steve's grateful for it. Their relationship would be a minefield otherwise. "It ain't never gonna not be sexy when you get off, I don't care where you are," Bucky says, and then he leans down, like a secret, "all that skin and all those freckles-" Steve opens his eyes just to roll them, but smiles a little "-and that face you make when you want it, when you're gettin' it-"

"Yeah, a'right, a'right," Steve says, but he feels his smile fade - they're both avoiding the issue. 

And it's a big one - Steve's…he wouldn't call himself lucky, but he knows it could have been worse. To begin with, he's the only one involved - it's not like they were both dosed, and not like they were trapped in a room together. Not that Steve didn't try, Jesus.

"You're askin' the wrong question, doll," Bucky murmurs, pressing his mouth to Steve's temple. "I hate what it did to you but you don't gotta ask how I am."

Steve looks up at him, squints a little. The room's too bright for him - he's having a drug-hangover, there's a whole host of things they need to keep an eye on. But Bucky's finding eye-contact difficult.

"Baby, look at me," Steve says, and Bucky does, always does when Steve asks. "Gimme a kiss, huh?"

Bucky's frown fades, and he leans down and kisses Steve proper. He doesn't pull away fully either, keeps their faces close as he threads his fingers in Steve's hair.

"I love you," Steve tells him, and hopes it's not a bad time to say it - he knows there's something fragile between them. 

"I love you, too," Bucky says, "I love you, too, sugar."

Bucky presses their foreheads together and breathes, and Steve breathes too. He is, more than anything, exhausted, although 'sore' is a very close second. Bucky's hand, though, his voice and his touch and his presence - Bucky - is a balm to him, and Steve knows that, as hard as it was for him, it was just as difficult for Bucky, albeit in a different way.

"Cant've been easy," Steve says softly, "seein' me that way?"

Bucky makes a noise that might've been a laugh if he'd actually smiled, and draws away enough to look at Steve - except that he doesn't actually look at Steve. Eye-contact isn't always easy for Bucky.

He shrugs one shoulder, and Steve waits. Bucky thinks about it for a little bit, shakes his head slowly, then a little faster.

"No," he says, chewing his lip. "Couldn't help you from the outside..."

He trails off and Steve wonders if he's thinking about the fact that they both know what that's like. 

"Can't've been easy turnin' me down," Steve tells him, and Bucky shakes his head again.

"No. Not when you looked like that."

And Steve knows he doesn't mean naked, doesn't mean hard. He means desperate, begging, afraid. He wants to take Bucky's hand but holds back.

"Havin' someone you trusted try'n do those things without listenin' to you?" he says, quiet because he's worried, because it's not something he wants to shout, because it's true - for someone who's suffered what Bucky's suffered, it can't have been easy to have had someone he thought was safe try and do the things Steve was trying to do. 

But Bucky turns his head then, looks at Steve with eyes burning in their intensity.

"Wasn't you," he says, and Steve narrows his eyes a little. "Ain't that what you're always tellin' me? You weren't in control it wasn't you."

And Steve nods slowly, turns his hand on the bedclothes so it's palm up, opens his fingers.

"Yeah," he says. "Remember what you're always tellin' me?" Bucky presses his lips together, his eyebrows come down. "I'm sorry anyway," Steve says, before Bucky can dismiss it. "I'm sorry anyway, sweetheart," and Bucky puts his hand in Steve's, shakes his head, closes his eyes, presses their heads together, bumps his nose against Steve's.

"I love you," Bucky tells him, and Steve nods, lifts his other hand to the back of Bucky's head.

"Love you, too," he says.

And Bucky stays like that for a few long moments, just curled close. He wants, Steve knows, comfort. But it's hard to take comfort from the person who put you on edge in the first place, like any argument with someone close, like any conflict with a person you rely on. Who do you complain to when the person who hurt you is the person you usually complain to?

"You don't gotta stay," Steve says, and Bucky snorts. 

"You're such an asshole," he says. " 'I don't gotta stay,' what the hell are you talkin' about, you nearly took your whole dick off today and you expect me to leave?"

"I don't _expect_ you to leave," Steve says. "I'm sayin' you went through a lot today and if you need a minute-"

"I'll get a fresh icepack for your balls unless you shut your mouth right now," Bucky tells him, and Steve laughs, turns his head away. 

Bucky takes the opportunity to put his face in Steve's neck - they're lying close and Bucky's holding him fairly loosely, but in a way that suggests he wouldn't let Steve breathe if it were any other time. He puts his arm over Steve's stomach, and Steve's body starts to wind down - ever since he got Bucky back, ever since he and Bucky rekindled the physical side of their relationship, Steve's hypervigilance has quit a little. After all, if Bucky relaxes enough to think thinks things are fine, then things are probably fine.

He'd sleep like that, he really would. A thin sheet over skin tender from drug-induced oversensitivity, an ice pack on his balls, and Bucky's arm over his waist, Bucky's head on his shoulder. He'd drift off and let the serum handle the pain and let Bucky handle the perimeter, but Doc Charbonnel chooses that moment to knock.

"Mmmh," Steve says, doesn't bother opening his eyes for now.

"Smart mouth," Bucky murmurs, and Steve looks at him then, because he pulls away, sits up.

"Hi?" Steve says, and Dr Charbonnel smiles awkwardly.

"Hi," he says. "We thought you might prefer me for your physical exam."

Steve feels his eyebrows go up.

"As much as 'prefer' is an applicable word in this situation," he says.

"Want me to leave?" Bucky asks, but Steve wraps his hand around Bucky's forearm, feels him do the same in return.

"Not really," he says, and he keeps his voice neutral but he's already grabbed Bucky's forearm which is a bit of a giveaway.

They've both learned the hard way that their bodies only mostly belong to them most of the time. Experiments and exams and testing will always be par for the course. At least with Bucky here, Steve doesn't have to worry about anything untoward - the same is true in reverse.

Bucky moves back, helps Steve onto his side, and then lies face to face with him as a distraction while they both ignore how far from enjoyable these things are. Once Steve's on his back again, Bucky takes the ice pack so Carbonnel can see how the damage is, and Steve just stares passively at the ceiling. He winces once - which is immediately followed by a profuse apology from Carbonnel - but the serum's working its usual wonders already, and Bucky gives him the ice pack back and covers him with the sheet once the two or three minutes Carbonnel takes are over. 

"Thanks," Steve says, because he's pretty sure from the look on Bucky's face that Bucky is not about to thank any of them, and then Carbonnel leaves them alone.

"Okay?" Bucky asks, and Steve nods.

"Yeah," he says. "His hands were cold."

And, for a long few moments there's nothing. And then Bucky splutters into a laugh, and buries his face in Steve's shoulder again.

***

It’s the day they’re letting him go - day four, because Steve’s fine and all the staff who’ve been with him are fine. But it’s almost worse to hear it then - it was a mistake. That’s all. Or, rather, a failed experiment.

“You’re serious,” Bucky says. “They had notes on it?”

Steve has his arm around Bucky’s waist, leaning on him a little, Bucky’s about ready to personally start a hunt for Hydra himself.

“They wanted a STI that was basically an aphrodisiac,” Glasses says. “Something that could keep their enemies occupied, something that would spread, but…they ended up mutating the strains they’d isolated. It just…would keep going. They lost about six test subjects before-”

“And they didn’t have an antidote in their fucking notes?” Bucky says, but he feels Steve’s head move, looks at Steve to find Steve staring at him.

“You know Hydra,” Steve says, and Bucky does. You don’t need a cure if your test subjects are expendable. 

“Yeah,” Bucky says, and he tired, he’s so tired. “They just wanted it to work.”

But Steve has gone very quiet, in the Steve-is-thinking sort of way, and Bucky looks at him.

“What?” he says.

“It wouldn’t have worked,” he says, and then he looks at Bucky, too. “Didn’t really feel it until I saw you, and then…”

Bucky frowns at him. He knows better than to say something dumbass like ‘you mean it was me?’ because he knows better, knows it wasn’t. But if it only kicked in when Steve saw him…

“You mean, you didn’t wanna fuck anything that moved,” Bucky says instead, and Steve nods.

“Yeah. Just you, a whole lot.”

Bucky shakes his head. That’s typical Hydra too - modus operandi equals method of failure. Send the Winter Soldier after the only guy who’ll be able to bring back his memory. Wait, maybe the common factor’s just Steve.

“So you wanted me, and I would’ve wanted you. We’d’ve fucked to death and the virus-”

“Fungus-”

“What the fuck _ever_, Stevie, I swear to God - it would have died with us.”

Steve nods slowly, Dr Cho is nodding too.

Bucky rolls his eyes.

“Christ, trust you to thwart a fucking Hydra master plan with _love_.”

Steve smiles - he’s tired, too, Bucky can tell - but he slides his hand onto Bucky’s cheek.

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” he says.

And really, Bucky doesn’t have an awful lot to say to that.

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilery summary: Steve gets sex-pollened by something that wants him to come as much as possible. He goes home with the good guys and gets put in decontamination, but the stuff won't stop until an antidote is found, and he winds up masturbating until he has to be forcefully restrained, at which point he still orgasms anyway. Eventually, an antidote is administered. 
> 
> Here's a useless fact - the title for this fic comes from Blake. The plant that pollens Steve, in my mind, looks like a tiger lily, which made me think of 'The Lamb' and 'The Tyger' by Blake: 
> 
> _'The Tyger' is thematically about 'a duality between aesthetic beauty and primal ferocity,' where 'The Lamb' is about innocence, the idea of both poems together being that, to see one, the hand that created "The Lamb", one must also see the other, the hand that created "The Tyger”: "Did he who made the Lamb make thee?"'_ Paraphrased from Wikipedia.
> 
> Steve's both innocent (not at fault) and ferociously primal (horny AF) in this. As well as pretty fkn cute lbr. So I figured it fit.


End file.
